Dodgy connection

leo738

My folks are living in an older part of Lucan with a phone line that hasn't been changed in many years. I believe they live approx 1km from the exchange. They are on a Vodafone package & have had, for a long time, problems with the broadband connection, particularly, but not limited to the evenings. The problem is in establishing a sync, normally failing at the training or handshake stage. Phone quality is not a problem.

I believe it's to do with a problem on the line as:

• The downstream noise margin is around 8.5dB (Vodafone managed to get it up from 6.5dB after we complained). Upstream is around 18dB.
• I've connected a BT Voyager modem directly to the main phone point & disconnected all other lines
• I've tried with & without a filter
• I've tried two different cables from the point to the modem

So I've contacted Vodafone about 3 times so far to report a fault on the line. They indeed diagnoise a problem on the line & say they will log the fault with eircom. A day or two later the fault is reported clear, but the same erratic connection problems exist & the noise margin is still <10dB.

We've threatened to change to eircom to see if that would have any effect, but no.

Does anybody know if eircom would have more interest if the folks were a direct customer? Or indeed what the problem may be?

Thanks,

Leo

ED E

You arent a direct customer, you would be a customer of Eircom Retail, while Eircom Wholesale own and maintain the lines.

Post your full line stats from your router, that'd help. It may be an issue of crosstalk if its particularly noticeable in the evenings.

TBH it sounds like Vodafone support are being lazy not investigating the fault properly. They can see when it drops so if its still losing sync they shouldnt be clearing the case. Assuming you're sure its DSL drops and not wifi?

leo738

Line stats below.

As a result of the last call (yesterday) to tech support they decreased our line speed to abour 9Mb, leading to an increase on the downstream noise margin to around 13.7dB. It hasn't been long enough to determine if this has improved the situation.

Not a wifi problem, confirmed by lack of steady DSL & Internet lights on the modem

ED E

Over 8db on the down should be fine. They're giving it loads of clearance now. If it stays up fine, if not the noise is intermittent and SNR readings wont really help unless you catch it at just the right time.